


You Wouldn't Forget About Me

by Incoherentbabblings



Series: Tumblr Ask Game Prompts [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hurt No Comfort, Mentioned Bruce Wayne, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-War Games (DCU), Romance, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27009733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Incoherentbabblings/pseuds/Incoherentbabblings
Summary: After Stephanie's return from Africa, she can't help but stare at the Robin costume in the Batcave. She feels like she still has something to prove, and Tim cannot find the right words.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake
Series: Tumblr Ask Game Prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1970230
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	You Wouldn't Forget About Me

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: 
> 
> _"I thought you forgot about me.”_
> 
> _“Never._

Standing in the cave, in the limited light, dressed only in a white tank top and shorts, Tim thought Stephanie looked otherworldly, half in the land of the living, half in the land of the dead.

Knowing what she had endured the past year, he thought maybe it was an accurate reading.

He plodded over to her carefully. Quietly, but loud enough that she wouldn’t jump when he finally spoke aloud.

She was lingering near Jason’s Robin case, fingers reaching out and touching the plaque. A slight frown was on her soft features, like she was trying to piece something together in her head.

“Steph?” Tim asked, stopping aside her. He didn’t like being near Jason’s case on the best of days, and now that Jason had returned and was playing merry hell with their lives, Tim had begun to resent Bruce keeping it out. Maybe now it was less for Jason’s death and more the death of whatever happy child had come before.

Stephanie continued to look thoughtful. “He still has this up,” she stated.

It seemed her and Tim were on the same line of thought, and he tried not to be happy at the idea of it.

“Yes.”

She couldn’t look Tim in the eye. She blinked five times in quick succession, the gears in her head turning. “He didn’t take it down when Jason came back.”

“No.”

“But Jason’s not dead anymore. And he kept it up.”

Her tone was not questioning, more like true statements of facts that she had pieced together in her mind. Tim watched her watch the case.

“He said I was Robin. He said that wasn’t a lie.” She clung to her forearms, holding herself. 

“It wasn’t. Not to me.”

She didn’t look mollified by his words and instead became confused.

“I…Did I get anything like this? Did he put it away when you found out about me?”

“…No. There was never anything here.” Tim’s own little bunker was a different story. But he couldn’t tell her that. He didn’t deserve to, and besides, that wasn’t the point of her questions.

“But I didn’t get this case. I didn’t get anything. Not believing I had died or not… there was nothing of me left behind.”

“Steph…”

But it seemed she had opened her own floodgates to her pain, and she began to rant, holding tight to herself. Her words were fast, exiting her mouth as quickly as thoughts came in, breathless, incoherent and disjointed. 

“He said it wasn’t a lie, but then he… I didn’t want to leave but my mom would have been… and Leslie thought… and I wanted you.”

She finally turned to look at Tim, colour bright in her cheeks. “I asked for you. I thought you hated me and I—”

“Never.” Tim gasped, “I couldn’t hate you.”

“But you didn’t come.” She sounded more upset than accusatory. Her self-loathing winning out over anger at Tim. “And I don’t know _why_.”

“He kept you from me!” He urged, trying to make her understand. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to touch her. But he didn’t have the right. He had to make do with words. “It wasn’t… I tried. But he didn’t tell me how long you were gone for. He didn’t tell me where he’d taken you, and then when I finally found out he’d told me you’d… He didn’t want me to watch you die.”

Her gut trembled like she had been punched. She curled away from him, stumbling and bent in two. He followed her, making sure she couldn’t trip and hurt herself, but still felt unable to comfort her. Finally, she straightened after an internal argument, her guilt having won.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair of me to say. You shouldn’t have had to see that. To see me like that.”

“I wanted to. You wanted to. That was all that should have counted.”

She shut her eyes and raised her head, tilting towards that thin stream of light coming down from above. 

“I thought… I thought you forgot about me.” 

“Never.” He said again. The admission was enough to make him reach for her. He was being a little selfish, but he just wanted to touch her again. After their last kiss, they had both maintained a sort of physical distance. The easy touches of a year ago were long gone, but he still yearned for them.

His fingers brushed her exposed neck, to which she gasped and opened her eyes. Moving her head forward once more, his hand curled under her chin, thumb pressing on her pulse point. Her heartbeat was thin and fast.

She sighed in a moment of weakness, softening under his touch. 

Stephanie blinked, the moment ending with a hardened gaze, and she observed him. “I’m staying for real in Gotham this time.”

“I know.”

“I matter.”

“You do.”

Of course she did. 

But it didn’t matter what Tim believed, not in the end.

“I want _him_ to believe it. No pretty words on a dying girl’s deathbed.”

But Bruce… The ever present boogieman, distorting what truly mattered. 

She stepped away, denying Tim the intimacy he craved. He tried to tell her that what she wanted was not something she could make Bruce do, and to not even attempt it. Tim had lost so much faith in Bruce in recent months, he didn’t want to watch Stephanie try to prove herself to a man who did not deserve it. It would only end badly…

He did not speak. He watched her step away, back towards the stairs and away from him. He let her go, feeling he didn’t have the right to be near her or advise her in the way he used to. He and Bruce had failed her, and the guilt swallowed him up.

Tim glared at Jason’s case, wishing more than anything in that moment that he could smash it to pieces.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr 16th January 2020.


End file.
